The Donplayer offers me advice

Good morning folks

Its nearly time for bed but Declan the Donplayer gave me a lecture in the pub. Told me Xmas week was his. Told me he would own me. Also told me "don't care about those BJs and Cashens " just want to own you.
So while having my post guinnessial cup of tea I done the Bridge Now robots like seabiscuit.

There was also Kieran in the pub who brings his chessboard to the pub ...we gave him seabiscuit as well. He even had Tomas coaching him a little but Galligan still done him 3 times in 25 minutes.

http://bridge-now.com

A real fine website to play the bridge on ..you get a score for every board out of 100.

However for the real students of the game ... go to
http:/rpbridge.net

Oh I nearly forgot .. Happy Christmas .. to all

Even Mesbur Fitzgibbon need a push sometimes

Good morning folks
Here is hand 31 from the fantastic Jim Cahill Invitational Pairs. Well the organisation was fantastic and the venue and venue supremo Declan Byrne and the prizes were fantastic.
However some of the bridge players needed a push from time to time.

Here are possibly Irelands most lauded pair Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon getting the hard push into a cold slam. Despite near 100 years of shared bridge experience they still required a whisper from one of the best individual players in Ireland Michael O'Briain. The actuary had not done his sums correctly on this occasion as Fitzgibbon having for various reasons been unable to advertise his HEART void along with the ATx of trumps so far was very happy to punt 6S now.

Note Fitzgibbon and Mesbur had already stopped in 4S so the auction was dead until Michael O'Briain revived it. Older bridge players have recalled the O'Briain brothers needing cushions to see the table in a bridge club many years ago.

Normally one would offer a solution when criticizing a bidding sequence but who am I to suggest some bidding to Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon. One would think an expert pairing like themselves would be able to advertise a useful VOID and ATx of trumps in their hand.
Maybe the 4H bid floods the auction.

Meanwhile I am not proud and I am happy to advertise my own miserable performance so far. 

Board 25 Jim Cahill Invitational Pairs and a Passed hand from another club

Folks
Here is a board I came across this morning while struggling with the Jim Cahill Pairs event.

All our fantastic pairs seem to be reaching for the hopeless skies. I personally passed 3D and then when 3H came along I now bid 3S and the opponents bid 4H which I left go for 3 down.
How come the "best " pairs in Ireland are ALL gone past the hopeless 4H. Something is wrong with the thinking on this board but about 5  of these pairs are sure fire invitees for the free money event sponsored by Jim Cahill.
Enormous prizes are available here for the participants but this board begs belief.
How come all NS pairs are roaring past 4H on the NS side and even reaching 4H on the EW side.
4H is surely minus 200 or 500 or more. I have not looked at the double dummy.

Meanwhile over in Fitzwilliam Tennis club I have a guy coming to explain that all the hands on hand 1 have 11 points or less.

Game is available for both sides in Spades and Hearts respectively but my man arrives up with I thought all hands should have an opening bid. I knew about the hand as I had watched the dealing machine dealing the boards and chose to leave it in the set. Same hand was also in the set on the same night in Malahide Regional. Generally when dealing sets I will watch out for a possible passed out balanced hand and delete it but this one is not for deleting.

I am happy to report that after a few decent boards ..2C doubled and made on 26 and 3NT downed on 27 that I am gaining some traction in this event. I finally got off the deck by overtaking MacCormac McMaugh. Long way to go though.

The Magical BJ O'Brien wins Senior Trials 2019 & Peter Pigot Bridge

This afternoon the fancied O'Brien squad held off a lacklustre challenge from the Keaveney squad in the deciding match of the Telscher Trials. The boards just did not have the imps in them for Keaveney to mount a decent challenge and the O'Brien squad was never under pressure.
They should have got Galligan to shuffle up the boards. The Galligan dealing program is a little more robust than the boring Brightman dealer.

We note the presence of Paul Delaney near the base of the scoring table. Paul has continued his career as a well known bridge coach.
His website has some classes ..I think he gears himself towards the Area Masters and beyond.
Paul being a former Irish chess champion has a good idea about training .

His website is
https://www.bridgewebs.com/coachteach/

Meanwhile for the intermediate and below players we have the mercurial Peter Pigot. Peter is active out past the Strand Road. Sometimes Glenageary sometimes Wanders Rugby place.
His website is
https://www.bridgewebs.com/peterpigotbridge/

Senior Camrose Trials December 14th 2019 Templogue

Meanwhile down in Templogue 6 hardy aging teams take on the Senior Camrose Trials.

5 ultra fit teams go with 4 person teams whereas the older wilier BJ O'Brien has selected 5 team mates to share the playing burden. At first glance one would expect the BJ O'Brien team to battle it out with the Connacht team of Keaveney and company. However Team Delaney could strike on a good day with Delaney Roche McAuliffe and O'Lubaigh all being capable players. Also present is the Porteus team of Porteus Barry Jackson and the mercurial Michael McGloughlin who is a fine player but by the time the thoughtful Jackson ends the bidding the man could have fallen asleep.
The 5th team is led by Wooden Spoons Kenny but she will be okay this weekend probably contesting 3rd 4th place. Currently bottom of the pile at the moment is the all ladies team of Eileen O'Donovan and I cannot see them taking down a 20 board match against any of the forementioned teams.
Their best chance will be to take down Porteus.

However they started by getting a hiding from Team BJ 'Brien

Hands 11-17 from the Jum Cahill invitational pairs and Paul Delaney Bridge Coach

Greetings from a cold but slightly sunny Swords. This morning  I tried a few more hands from the Jim Cahill Invitational pairs event. This event was held in the Regent Bridge Club on the weekend of the 22nd to 24th of November. 12 invited pairs but there might have been 20 pairs asked before the final 12 took the floor. For next year the top 10 pairs are automatically extended invitations.

So I played a few boards and got badly mauled. There is a long way to go but its been a long time since I had figures in the 30% range.

There I am ... 29% after board 18 of 176.

I am going to change my system to something that Jack knows well and see if it helps.

Here is the sad video of boards 11 to 18 or maybe it is 12 to 18.
https://youtu.be/L-BMek_1ijs

However I will be back and expect to climb the leaderboard next time.
.................................
Meanwhile if you want to attend some classes of the Area Master type level and higher you could try Paul Delaney who operates just South of the Liffey.

Paul Delaney .. The Bridge Coach

https://www.bridgewebs.com/coachteach/Declarer%20Play%20Worksheet.pdf

https://www.bridgewebs.com/coachteach/Defence%20Worksheet.pdf

Some links from Paul Delaneys Bridge Coach page .. I learned lots of my bidding from Paul Delaney when we used to play together. Then he realised he taught me too well.

Playing the Jim Cahill invitational with Jack and 5NT from Malahide

About 1 week ago I got down to creating a pbn file of the Jim Cahill invitational. 176 boards played by 12 top Celtic Pairs. 2 Welsh and one English type slipped into the event. Using some scripts provided by Dave the Snake from Wicklow off we went. PBN is short for portable bridge notation and is one of the best known file types these days for storing bridge games with bidding and play and names and many other tags.
So having made up our 176 board file with 6 plays in almost every board we fired up our Jack program and started to play. Now one expects to finish somewhere near the bottom of this event as there are some good players involved.
Putting it bluntly Eddie Fitzgerald and Michael McDonagh would be termed very dangerous opponents anywhere in Ireland and on some boards anywhere in the world. This multi titled pair were the lowest placed in this years renewal of the James Cahill Invitational. So the comparisons will be tough.
So it took 8 boards before I found any traction. Before that I had a 7/12 as my best score along with 4 below average and 2 averages.

Finally on board 8 I secured a top .. Better than all the rest. Just like playing on
http://bridge-now.com
Speaking of which I failed to finish my 70 boards this week due to the local barman locking his doors a little too early. I was standing in the cold ringing him. I was nearly firing up my tablet in the car to get the boards played.
Now it was not his fault really. I got the bridge finished about 1105pm. The lady at table 8 finally played her final card at 1105pm. However it was not over .. the folk had to have their postmortems and I was locking up. Result I land at my local at about 1140pm so its kind of late. Anyway all was well apart from missing the 70 hands target by 3.

Meanwhile a nice hand popped up in Malahide and someone mentioned it.

Now our player landed in 5NT after exploring a slam. Problem was now he needed to make 11 tricks in NO TRUMP and was at the 5 level. 

So under severe pressure. Adding to the issue East poked out the toughest and best lead. 

CLUB NINE lead and our player won the CLUB ACE and started to think. The thinking did not work and our player got a minus score. He later mentioned that he got to 5NT and failed to make it despite the sheet saying 5NT is cold. Later that night having finally achieved entry to my local and played as many hands as possible on Bridge Now before end of week at 12 bells Wed I decided to have a look at our players hand. I could see a good shot at making the hand given I could see all the cards and sent a text indicating only a very strong declarer might roll that one home. 

12 hours later our player is still examining the hand and the sheet and bridgewebs but no success even seeing all the cards. So I gave him a good clue about throw in and taking all his winners first. 

A while later he agreed it could be made and expressed thanks. 

I said ... next problem is for you to make 6D 6H and 6S with the same cards and lead. 

4 lessons in one ...

Not bad for one hand ...

Ireland Premier Pairs Nov 22-24 Regent Bridge Club and BBO

This weekend we have the annual Interprovincial championships.

Ferghal O'Boyles website has plenty of details.

http://fob.ie

Interpro Player names

Open Interpros

Leinster should win with Connacht 2nd and Munster 3rd.
The Ulster Team will struggle.

Mind you one of the Munster teams is fielding the mercurial Kelan O'Connor but it is a 6 person team so Kelan may not get much table time. However maybe Kelan will tog out for one of the other Munster teams if someone slept in on a Sunday morning.

The Leinster Area Master team is powered by the experiencd Brid Galligan partnered by the reluctant bridge player Sean Galligan.

Meanwhile the BBO challenges continue .. Galligan took on some NIBU Camrose players and despite a horrendous 7D going down 4 to lose 13 imps ...Galligan emerged with plus 9 imps.
Two players are yet to complete this challenge. A short video of the final 5 boards is placed below

Eamon v NIBU firsts

...............

Next weekend in the Regent Bridge Club and live on Bridgebase Online we have the Ireland Premier Pairs event. 12 pairs will take part with directing carried out by Martin Brady.
Jim Cahill and Ann Tuite run this invitational event.

Adam Mesbur & Nick Fitzgibbon

Tom Hanlon & Hugh McGann

Peter Goodman & Mike Pownell

Cian Holland & Anna Onishuk

Rex Anderson & David Greenwood

Terry Walsh & Derek O'Gorman

B.J. O'Brien & Dan MacIntosh

Michael O'Briain & Padraig O'Briain

Gay Keaveney & Enda Glynn

Ciaran Coyne & David Walsh

John Carroll and Mark Moran

Eddie Fitzgerald & Michael McDonagh

The 12 pairs taking part are shown above. 

PREMIER PAIRS 2019  22 – 24^th November

1.     PROGRAMME AND BOARDS TO BE PLAYED

Friday, 22^nd

Sandwiches available from 13.00

14.00  -  18.00                                             30 Boards

18.00  -  19.15                                             Break

19.15  -  23.00                                             25 Boards

Saturday, 23^rd

10.00  -  13.30                                             24 Boards

13.30  -  14.00                                             Break

14.00  -  17.30                                             24 Boards

18.00  -  20.30                                             18 Boards

Organisers will arrange “take-away” food from local restaurants and players can order up to €15 (to be included in entry fee)

Sunday, 24^th

10.00  -  14.00                                             30  Boards

14.00  -  14.30                                             Break

14.30  -  17.30                                             25 Boards

The Purest form of Bridgebase online and final World Seniors placing

Today I finished my first go at the purist form of bridge and arguably the toughest.

Matchpoints
Just Declare

and 2 grandmasters and one Kerryman and one Conor Boland as opponenrs.

After butchering at least 4 boards I expected to struggle to break 40% in this field.
When the results popped up I had about 44.5% so that was ok.

Exhibit 1

 After Club King lead and club 2 and club Jack at trick 1 how does one play this hand.
I won 2nd Club with Ace
and floated the Diamond 10 after much thought.
Sadly Jack to 3 on the West and down I went ..

Despite the robots not taking all their hearts I was one down ... for 0% ..
Pretty harsh I thought

All other 4 declarers made the contract .. Presume they made 5 diamonds 2 spades and 2 clubs
Maybe I should have ducked another club to tighten the play and maybe see a small diamond discard. or maybe when GIB does not cover diamond 10 ..he does not have diamond JACK.

....................................................
Meanwhile out in the World championships the Ireland Seniors struggled in the Senior event.
Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon brought in a respectable 0.36 imps per board but the other 4 only managed to bring in below average scores which would never be enough to be competitive.
Having said that ...the opposition in World championships is damn tough.

 Mesbur and Fitzgibbon were 17th placed pair in the Butler of the many boards pairs

 O'Brians somewhat lower and Ranald BJ another few places down
However just to be aware this is a serious level of bridge
one place above BJ and Ranald we note the presence of George Mittelman a World champion at Open level back in the day ....and Ken Burcasen who goes deep in the Spingold in recent past ...
Maybe he even one a US National ..

The Ireland squad got a little run going near the end but by then there was too much to do.
Training and dedication pays off more then beating up the Regent newbies and the Bray Wheelers.

Duais predictions 2019

Lets see if we can pick out the contenders in the Duais Niall Burke


1. Holland Onishuk
2. Delaney Boland
3. McDevitt McDonagh
4. Fitzgerald Kenny
5. Mr Happiness (John Phelan) and Lucy
6. Mr Angry (O'Connors)
7. Cummins Noonan
8 Gaynor Redmond
9. Roches
10. Pattinsons
11 Ronan Cassidy
12 Tuckey Costello


Those are my top 12 picks in roughly that order

Lets see how I go ...

Brady O'Lubaigh ...well unless they win it in Session 1 and 2 ... O'Lubaigh will be a tired hoss in the morning.
Lodewijks has too much heavy to carry in Wojciech
Elvin and Maria don't have the partnership rapport to carry it thru although Whelan used to have great form in the old Bankers Congress Mixed Pairs ..
Rigney and Part are not a regular pairing
Sean Carroll has a little too much to carry in the aging Jim Doyle

...............................
Meanwhile out in Wuhan China ...

The USA2 team looks to be bailing out at the qualifying stage. I am not sure what is wrong with them as they are quite decent players.
The Scottish ladies team is also heading for home or trans nationals
The Irish Senior Team missed out on the Jacko mantras about Preparing and Imp Gathering
Meanwhile a decent English Mixed squad is firing well so far.

Ireland v Bulgaria and Mesbur Fitzgibbon still in the canteen ..

Good morning folks

I am about to go to bed. However I checked in on Wuhan for a time check. Found it was 10:15am and that play was started. Had done some research and figured large wins were necessary for Ireland Seniors.

Sadly I note Mesbur and Fitzgibbon are still in the breakfast room ..

Its like City without Aguero and Liverpool without Salah

Whats going on ... If you want to make quarter finals you got to play Mesbur and Fitz for all the rest of the games ... Its not like they are not fit for battle

Taking on Bulgaria with 3 players weaker than Galligan is suicide ..

Is Derek O'Gorman really the NPC ... he would be better off playing himself ..

Lets see if Galligan is wrong .......

At least the rugby starts soon but I got to go to bed ..

Maybe USA2 in the Bermuda Bowl will get a move on today with a good start against Morocco.
No offence to Morocco but they are never making quarter finals and maybe Lall might be worth watching . He might pull some stroke ..

Its 2-0 for Ireland after 2 but +720 looks iffy ... its a dodgy 6D so could be flat board or 13 out ..
We will see when I awaken

Strangely they bid 4H on a 3-2 fit so one is suspicious ....Will see when I awaken
Suspect it is 4H on board 4 winning some imps for Bulgaria and maybe something bad happened
for Bulgaria on board 3 ...and they did not enter it ...like 7D minus 1 ...

Galligan to bed ..We will see in the morning

Ireland Seniors versus USA1

This morning Dublin time Ireland Seniors were faced with the USA1 Senior Team. This match one would expect to end only 1 way.

USA1 fielded at centre forward Bart Bramley who was the go to guy for double dummy analysis before the computers caught up  ... In laymans terms BEFORE Deep Finesse.

Bramley is partnered by one Kit Woolsey ... the gently bobbing legend of bridge.

Gaylor Kasle ..well he has been capable since 1966 when he was runnerup in North American Pairs and has won 10 NABCs since then.

Dan Morse ..he has only 12 NABCs ...

So the Dream Team is up against opposition of heavy capability.

Board 1 North Deals None Vul	♠ K 6 4 3 ♥ K ♦ Q J 2 ♣ J 8 6 3 2
♠ A Q 9 8 ♥ 9 7 6 5 2 ♦ A 8 4 ♣ A	N W E S	♠ J 7 2 ♥ A Q 10 ♦ K 10 9 3 ♣ 7 5 4
	♠ 10 5 ♥ J 8 4 3 ♦ 7 6 5 ♣ K Q 10 9

W 4♠; EW 4♥; E 3♠; EW 4♦; EW 2N; NS 1♣; Par −420

 Ireland declared board 1 in 3 ♥ going down 1 but luckily USA1 were in 4 ♥ down 1
Missed chance 

Board 2 East Deals N-S Vul	♠ 7 ♥ Q J 7 6 4 ♦ 9 6 3 ♣ A J 7 4
♠ Q 3 ♥ K 5 2 ♦ 8 5 2 ♣ K Q 5 3 2	N W E S	♠ K 9 6 5 2 ♥ 9 3 ♦ Q J 10 7 ♣ 8 6
	♠ A J 10 8 4 ♥ A 10 8 ♦ A K 4 ♣ 10 9

NS 5♥; NS 3N; NS 2♦; NS 2♣; NS 1♠; Par +650

Our O'Briains contrived to declare 2 ♠ as E/W and lose 150.
Mesbur and Fitzgibbon roared into the normal vulnerable 4 ♥ for 11 imps

Board 3 South Deals E-W Vul	♠ K Q 10 4 ♥ Q 6 ♦ J 9 8 5 3 ♣ 3 2
♠ 8 ♥ J 9 8 5 4 3 ♦ A Q ♣ K J 9 5	N W E S	♠ A 9 7 6 3 ♥ A 10 ♦ K 7 2 ♣ 10 6 4
	♠ J 5 2 ♥ K 7 2 ♦ 10 6 4 ♣ A Q 8 7

EW 4♥; EW 2N; EW 2♠; EW 3♣; NS 1♦; Par −620

The Americans bid game ..the O'Briains played part score ..lose 10 

Board 4 West Deals Both Vul	♠ K 9 ♥ K 8 7 3 2 ♦ A 8 6 ♣ K Q 10
♠ A 6 2 ♥ 10 9 6 5 ♦ Q J 7 ♣ 8 7 3	N W E S	♠ Q J 10 8 4 ♥ A 4 ♦ 4 ♣ A J 9 5 4
	♠ 7 5 3 ♥ Q J ♦ K 10 9 5 3 2 ♣ 6 2

N 2♥; NS 3♦; EW 1N; EW 2♣; EW 1♠; S 1♥; Par +110

 Mesbur Fitzgibbon gathered in 300 when the US went too high .. plus 4 imps

Board 6 East Deals E-W Vul	♠ 10 5 3 2 ♥ A 6 ♦ 5 3 ♣ A J 9 7 5
♠ 9 6 ♥ K J 10 7 5 ♦ K J 9 7 2 ♣ 6	N W E S	♠ K Q J 7 ♥ 9 8 4 ♦ Q 10 8 ♣ 8 4 2
	♠ A 8 4 ♥ Q 3 2 ♦ A 6 4 ♣ K Q 10 3

NS 2N; NS 2♠; EW 2♥; NS 3♣; EW 2♦; Par +120

3 NT by South

Board 6 saw Mesbur Fitz gather in 3 NT making for another gain
The lead was the ♦ 7 ..and it looks like good work from here to get to 9 tricks ..
7 imps to Ireland

Board 12 West Deals N-S Vul	♠ A Q 8 ♥ Q 7 6 3 ♦ A J 7 5 ♣ 9 6
♠ 10 9 3 ♥ K 9 4 ♦ 6 2 ♣ K 8 7 5 2	N W E S	♠ K 7 6 4 ♥ A 5 2 ♦ 10 9 ♣ A J 10 4
	♠ J 5 2 ♥ J 10 8 ♦ K Q 8 4 3 ♣ Q 3

 Board 12 saw the Americans gather in partials at both tables and 5 imps

Board 13 North Deals Both Vul	♠ J 6 ♥ 10 6 5 3 ♦ 9 8 3 2 ♣ K 3 2
♠ A Q ♥ Q J 9 8 2 ♦ K J 5 ♣ Q 9 6	N W E S	♠ K 8 7 5 4 ♥ 7 4 ♦ 6 ♣ A J 8 5 4
	♠ 10 9 3 2 ♥ A K ♦ A Q 10 7 4 ♣ 10 7

EW 3N; EW 3♠; EW 3♥; EW 4♣; NS 1♦; Par −600

The American E/W managed to bid the making 3 NT and the O'Briains played part score so 10 imps for the Americans

Nothing major happened after this so IRELAND had a small loss of 2 imps against a very decent but aging USA1 team 

A morale boosting small loss for the Ireland Seniors ..

I was looking on Bray Bridge Club website for BJ O'Brien but I could not find him .
Then I remembered he could not be in Bray and Wuhan at the same time.

I wondered about why BJ was missing from Bray Congress Teams ... but then I found Stevenson.

David Stevenson one of Englands top bridge tournament directors.

Bray Congress Swiss Teams

So Ireland need a large win against the 7th place TURKEY to get the ball rolling ...
and then lots more big wins .. We have lots of Teams to overtake

Last time out we reached the quarter finals and for some reason chose to bat against USA1.
Not a good choice any time ..

Bermuda Bowl and lesser events